


A Deception

by Josselin



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Auguste Lives, Forced Marriage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:11:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: Laurent was capable of lying well enough to fool his brother, but he wasn’t sure it was even worth it in this circumstance. He’d already told both his brother and Damianos why this charade was necessary, and neither of them had taken him seriously, and had persisted in asking him the question at least a dozen times each again this morning.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [Punk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk/profile) for a patient beta read! And thanks to everyone who encouraged me when this was [just an idea on tumblr.](http://josselinkohl.tumblr.com/tagged/joss-writes-the-second-marriage-consummation-fic'>just%20an%20idea%20on%20tumblr.</a>)

Auguste and Laurent were in what had been their mother’s favorite solar. The room had beautiful light, with large glass windows on three sides, offering a view of the city and the mountains beyond. Neither of the royalty currently in the solar were admiring the view. 

After the ruckus in Damianos’s chambers, Auguste had dragged Laurent off to lecture him privately. Auguste was dressed for court; presumably he’d been on his way there when he had been interrupted. Laurent was wearing an Akielon-style dressing gown, because when Herode had insisted that he be provided some suitable clothing immediately, a gown on a hook had been the nearest thing to hand for a servant to fetch. Laurent was uncertain that the dressing gown provided any advantages over being naked, as it was short enough to reveal his knees and also sheer. But he had wrapped it around himself. 

Laurent had seated himself precisely on a footstool with his dressing gown carefully draped, and Auguste had collapsed into a chair across from him.

“Why, Laurent?” Auguste’s tone was a mix of frustration and exhaustion. He had a furrow in his forehead and his hands spread in what struck Laurent as a kingly gesture. 

Laurent was capable of lying well enough to fool his brother, but he wasn’t sure it was even worth it in this circumstance. He’d already told both his brother and Damianos why this charade was necessary, and neither of them had taken him seriously, and had persisted in asking him the question at least a dozen times each again this morning.

Laurent rolled his eyes. “I was overcome with desire,” he said.

Auguste sighed. He rubbed his forehead with one hand.

“I am worried for you,” said Auguste. “Ios is far away, and if you persist with this insistence that the prince’s brother is a traitor—what do you suppose I would do if someone made that accusation about you?”

Laurent assumed Auguste would have the person thrown in the dungeons, so by that metric he supposed that Damianos’s angry rejection of their budding courtship had been a mild response. The difference was that he was not a traitor to Vere. He was Auguste’s staunchest supporter. In contrast, Laurent had evidence of Kastor’s treachery, witnesses and an incriminating letter, and no one would even take him seriously long enough to inspect the material.

“Once I’m married to an Akielon I’m sure the accusations will follow quickly,” Laurent said.

“Be serious,” said Auguste. “I told you you were too young to marry. You’re only eighteen.” Auguste’s voice softened to a more private tone. “You might think you are infatuated with Damianos—”

“I’m not—”

“And he is a fine man! I like him. But you are too young for marriage. You have little experience in such things.”

Laurent interrupted. “I’m not certain that having a parade of pets as lovers prepares one for a state marriage in any case—”

“It would help you to—”

Auguste fretted too much. “There is little sense lecturing me about it,” said Laurent. “What’s done is done. There is a council decree already.” He’d gone to a lot of effort to arrange for not one but two council members to walk in on him naked in Damianos’s bed that morning, and his plan had proceeded exactly as he had intended.

“Perhaps if I spoke with Herode—”

“This is what I want,” said Laurent. He sat up a little bit straighter on his footstool. “I do not want you to speak with Herode.”

There was silence between them for a long moment. Auguste closed his eyes as he rubbed his temples, and Laurent thought with a sudden pang that he would miss Auguste terribly when it came time to leave.

“We will have the wedding before Damianos leaves Arles,” said Auguste.

Laurent nodded. He had expected as much.

“It will be a traditional Veretian royal wedding,” said Auguste.

Laurent nodded again.

“And everything that accompanies a royal wedding—”

“I know.”

“Are you—”

“Yes.”

Auguste narrowed his eyes slightly on Laurent. “Akielons have—delicate notions about such things.”

“I’ve probably read more about Akielons than you have,” said Laurent. He’d spent more hours than Auguste knew training with the Akielon ambassador, pretending to have a terrible crush and asking flighty and ridiculous questions to ensure he had a mastery of the language. This had the consequence of meaning that he knew a fair number of ridiculous love poems and few useful words about things like troop movements, but once he was in Akielos he was sure he could pick the rest of it up quickly.

Auguste’s mind was somewhere else. “He will not agree to—you will have to let him—”

“I assumed as much,” Laurent said coolly.

Auguste was apparently not willing to let this go unspoken. “This is not some dessert you can taste and send back to the kitchens—”

“I did that once,” Laurent objected, “when I was seven—”

“You will have to let him finish inside you,” Auguste said.

Laurent raised an eyebrow at his brother, keeping his expression carefully neutral. “I’m not ignorant of the ceremony.”

Auguste regarded him for a long moment, and then he stood. He stretched in a dismissive gesture, as though he could not comprehend Laurent and he was abandoning the attempt. “You have mind like a fox, little brother,” Auguste said. “But this is a matter of the heart, and I hope that you do not find later that you have regrets.”

Auguste left their mother’s solar before Laurent could assure him that he was confident he would not.

***

The Veretian rooms that had been appointed to the visiting Akielon prince were opulent. In Akielos, ornamentation was expected to be subtle, a hint to augment something’s natural beauty. In Vere, each artisan seemed to be competing for a prize in how much decoration could be added to every piece. The effect was overwhelming. 

In the guest chambers, there was not a single spot where Damen could place his eyes that felt restful. Even the ceiling was carved and painted. He stood near the window, instead, and cast his eyes out over the bustling city. The city of Arles was still gaudy and unfamiliar, but at least it had a genuineness to it that the palace lacked.

“Exalted—”

Damen looked away from the window to see who interrupted his privacy. 

“Nikandros.”

Nikandros came across the room and stood next to Damen at the window. Damen let his eyes land on his friend; Nikandros was not ridiculously decorated. Nikandros was the same as he had always been. He was wearing his chiton in the Delphan style even in the middle of Arles, and the only jewelry he wore was the armband Damen had presented him with as a sign of his generalship. 

“I heard we are not leaving tomorrow,” said Nikandros.

Damen sighed. 

They were close enough friends that Nikandros did not ask Damen if there was more to the story than whatever rumors must already be flying around the court.

“We are not leaving yet,” said Damen. 

“I miss the sun,” said Nikandros. “Walk with me in the garden.”

They nodded at the guards outside Damen’s chambers and made their way out to the courtyard. It too was nothing like home. The natural beauty of the garden was tightly contained in small plots each of some precisely colored flower, and all of those neatly arranged behind rows of hedges.

Damen let Nikandros direct their path, and they wandered some distance into the hedge maze, far from any others in the garden, before Damen spoke.

“I have agreed to wed Prince Laurent.”

A songbird hopped from one branch of the hedge in front of them to another in some kind of small dance. 

Nikandros nodded slowly. “You have been courting him. Though I thought you had quarreled.”

The bird pecked at the ground for a moment, jumped to another branch, and then took off toward the sky.

“He accused Kastor of treason.”

Damen watched his friend’s reaction. Nikandros’s face was even and he did not seem surprised. “So you suspended your courtship.”

“I did not mean for it to be serious,” said Damen. “Auguste warned me that he considered eighteen too young for an engagement anyway.”

Nikandros nodded, taking this in. “But something has changed?”

“We were discovered in a compromising position,” said Damen.

Now Nikandros raised an eyebrow. “He tempted you despite your better judgement?”

“I was asleep,” said Damen, speaking slightly louder, and then deliberately lowering his voice again. “I came awake to realize someone was in my bed, only to have half of the Veretian council burst in.”

“Where were your guards?” said Nikandros, frowning.

Damen shook his head. “I only found Lydos later, it seems there was some sort of contrived distraction that pulled him and Pallas away.”

Nikandros was still frowning. “I’ll speak with them; they should know better.”

“It’s not their fault,” said Damen. “It’s Laurent—the whole episode was of his contrivance, I’m certain. Once we were discovered, he played at being surprised, and then when no one else was looking, he winked at me!”

Nikandros hid half a smile unsuccessfully behind one hand.

“Do not be too harsh on Pallas and Lydos,” Damen continued. “The prince may look like a buttercup but he is a snake underneath.”

They continued walking through the garden. On the far side was an artificial pond. On the day of their arrival, a water entertainment had been arranged, and water had sprayed out of statues in the pond in an amazing dance. It was done with an aqueduct and a system of hydraulics, Auguste had said, proudly explaining the mechanics to Damen.

Damen had marveled at it. Coming from a desert, it seemed overly extravagant, but at least it had not been as embarrassing as some of the sexual entertainments arranged for later days of their visit. 

They walked along the edge of the pond. The faucets were not running and the water was still. A toad croaked somewhere on the far bank. Nikandros placed a hand on his forearm. “There is another reason that I wished to speak with you alone.”

“Go on,” said Damen.

Instead of speaking, Nikandros drew a piece of parchment from a pouch at his belt, smoothed it, and handed it to Damen. 

Damen stopped walking to read, and they lingered at a spot on the path toward the middle of the pond. 

The letter was between Hestor and Meniados. Hestor was a friend, an Akielon lord with a lovely olive orchard and a good sense for horses. Damen had hunted with him before. Meniados was the kyroi in Sicyon, the region where Hestor was located. Couched among several paragraphs of business-like correspondence about the local weather and some horses Meniados was hoping to breed with Hestor’s stallion were the damning sentences.

_The older prince has approached me about the king’s health and the future of our country. I should like to speak with you as well._

Damen had a new awareness of traps after the morning’s events. “It can’t be real,” he said. “This is some kind of Veretian trap.”

Nikandros stroked his short beard. “I did not want to bring something to you if I was uncertain,” he said. “I spoke with Hestor. I compared this letter to several others he gave me that he knew to be from Meniados. It is the same hand.”

“So Meniados has a favorite scribe, and the man took a bribe.” Damen gave the letter back to Nikandros.

“It’s his seal,” said Nikandros, turning the paper over to reveal the wax imprint. Damen inspected it; it was the seal for Sicyon.

“Then I am sure there is an explanation,” said Damen. “If it is not some kind of Veretian plot, then Kastor must have been misunderstood by Meniados, or—”

Nikandros tucked the letter away in the pouch at his belt. “I will burn it,” he said. “But I would ask you—as a friend, Damen,” he used Damen’s small name from childhood. “To please watch Kastor carefully? I have watched him, and sometime he looks upon you with such jealousy that I do not recognize the man I knew when we were boys.”

Damen started walking again back toward the palace. Nikandros reached out and grabbed his forearm and drew him to a stop. “Promise me?” Nikandros said.

“Yes,” said Damen, and Nikandros let go of his arm, and they returned toward the palace. 

As they were walking, a blond head appeared on one of the balconies above the garden, then disappeared back within. 

“I am sick of Veretian traps,” said Damen, wishing for a moment that he had never come to Vere.

Nikandros gave Damen a rueful look. “At least it will not be a hardship to bed him.”

Damen stared at his friend until Nikandros laughed gently. 

***

By the evening, Damen had realized he needed to talk to Laurent. The wedding preparations were already well underway, with what seemed like half the palace bustling around arranging for ribbons or food or entertainments. Nikandros’s words weighed on Damen’s mind. He sought out Kastor, only to learn that Kastor had gone hunting with Etienne. Etienne was one of the bolder Veretian courtiers, obviously anxious to curry favor with the king, and happy to entertain the visiting Akielon guests. Damen had found Etienne superficial and his taste in entertainment lewd, but he seemed to get along well enough with Kastor. They were not expected back until the following day. 

Laurent seemed to be guarded not only by the Prince’s Guard, but by any number of officials who frowned about Damen’s request to see him before the wedding. 

“Tradition says—”

All of the Veretian traditions that Damen had heard of seemed to be part of their overwhelming fear of bastardy, so Damen assured the man that he was not going to get Laurent with child, and the official sputtered.

Damen was insistent. 

He was finally allowed a chaperoned conversation with Laurent’s guard, and he found himself back in the gardens again in the evening. 

Laurent looked different than he had that morning. He was dressed in what Damen had come to see was his usual fashion of riding clothes. They were less ornamented than what half of the court favored, but still involved three layers and five sets of laces. Damen was not sure why it was necessary for a vest to lace in both the front and the back, surely laces on one side would be sufficient to be able to remove the item. That morning, Laurent’s hair had been loose and mussed, as though he really had spent the night pleasurably rolling around in Damen’s bed, but this evening he had it tamed and pulled back in a short knot at his nape. 

Laurent’s guard was named Jord. Damen had met him earlier in their courtship, and found him amiable enough, though he seemed to take the council’s dictates about his chaperone duties seriously and he settled himself about three feet away from Laurent and glared at Damen. 

Laurent seemed slightly amused by the whole situation.

“I would like to speak with you,” said Damen.

“Yes?”

Damen cast a glance over at Jord. Jord looked stonily back. “Could we speak privately?”

Laurent eyed their surroundings. “Jord, we’re just going to step over to that other bench.” Laurent pointed to another stone bench separated from their current location by a plot of flowers. 

“Herode—” said Jord.

“It’s fine, you will have a complete line of sight,” said Laurent.

They walked around the plot of flowers and sat down on the bench. There was a careful distance of two hand-spans between them. Damen could not believe that Laurent had been in his bed that morning, that the warm press of skin that he had felt as he had been waking up was the same man who sat unfeeling and collected next to him on the stone. 

“Laurent,” Damen managed Laurent’s name and then realized he was not actually sure how to begin what he needed to say. “I do not think this wedding is a good idea.”

Laurent raised an eyebrow. “You agreed to it this morning.”

“There must be an alternative,” said Damen. “An engagement. Until you are older, or so that we could be married in Akielos.”

Laurent frowned slightly.

Damen continued. “This all seems in haste. But it does not have to be. We could pledge to each other now, and marry when you and Auguste visit Ios in two years—”

“No,” said Laurent.

“Why?” said Damen.

“It must be now.”

“I don’t understand,” said Damen. “You know as well as I do that we did not—” He felt on the verge of blushing and Laurent seemed amused. 

“Are you certain?” said Laurent. There was definitely an edge of laughter in his tone. “You were asleep.”

“I don’t sleep that soundly!”

Laurent laughed, and as he laughed he leaned in slightly on the bench. Damen supposed that to Jord, the scene appeared as just another flirtation, but it had nothing of that feeling.

“If we both explained to the council,” said Damen, “honestly, what happened—”

“I will lie,” said Laurent. The laughter was completely gone from his voice and his eyes were hard. “I will say that I was there all night. I will swear that you bent me over the chaise and had me twice in the bed.”

Damen’s mouth was slightly open. “Why?” He felt his mouth twist into something unpleasant. “What do you gain from this scheme that you are so set upon having it at any cost?”

“Is it not enough to be the Prince Consort?”

Damen shook his head. “You are not some street urchin looking for an easy life in the palace. You have everything being Prince Consort could offer you already here. There is something else.”

There was a long moment. Laurent’s hand was in the space on the bench between them. He traced along one of the lines in the stone with a single delicate finger.

“There is,” Laurent agreed. 

“Tell me what it is.”

The silence drew out again. Laurent traced the line again and then withdrew his hand to his lap. “I will tell you once we are married.”

Damen sighed. He ran a hand through his hair. “You do not want to marry in Akielos? We could skip the ridiculous ceremony.”

Damen realized too late how offensive his words might sound to the Veretian prince, but Laurent only tilted his head to the side, considering. “‘The council would not agree to that,” he said. “It will be better to do it here, with their blessing.”

“About the consummation ceremony,” Damen said, starting to feel the blood rising to his face again and continuing regardless. “It—Laurent—in Akielos, a First Night ceremony is special.” He searched for words. “Something private, to treasure. One might prepare for months—”

“We have only a week,” said Laurent, sounding amused.

“That is not what I meant,” Damen said, shaking his head. “I meant that I do not think this ceremony is how it ought to be. You might be nervous—”

“From your babble, it seems you are the nervous one,” said Laurent.

“And you might be more comfortable if we were to wait. That is why I suggest an Akielon wedding.”

Laurent turned slightly on the bench. “I see. You suggest we delay the marriage, perform it in Akielos where none of my family or countrymen will see, and then endure the whispers of bastardy whenever we return to Arles, but you suggest it for my comfort.” His voice had the edge of a weapon, and Damen felt his posture on the bench turn wary, as though they were in a knife fight and not a garden rendezvous.

“I am not trying to trick you,” said Damen, remembering that whatever Laurent’s tone now, Laurent had actually tricked him into this whole situation. “I do not want you to be uncom—”

He stopped, suddenly, mid-word. Laurent had leaned in across the bench and reached a hand in between Damen’s legs. He grasped Damen unerringly through the cloth of his chiton. Damen’s eyes widened. Laurent pursed his lips, as though he were a chef on market day inspecting some produce at the farmer’s stand. “Don’t get too high an opinion of yourself,” said Laurent. “I can handle it.” Laurent released Damen as suddenly as he had reached out, and retreated back to his side of the bench. Laurent stood up. “We’re finished here.”

Laurent summoned Jord back to him with a flick of his wrist. Damen watched him walk back toward the palace. 

***

Laurent had been familiar with the rituals of the ceremony since he was too young for them to have meant anything to him. He had dedicated himself, when he had been eight or nine, to reading all of the Veretian books of protocol from his father’s library. His mother had thought it was charming, and Auguste had thought he was very boring. Laurent hadn’t thought much about the ceremony then. He hadn’t ever intended to be married, at eight, and he had noted it as intellectually interesting but as something that he only needed to know about for Auguste, just as he studied all of the rituals of coronation or of kingship. 

There had been more of a fuss about it when Auguste had married Jehanne. Courtiers had tittered about it as they had all of the wedding preparations, and despite the fact that only the council was supposed to actually witness the event, rumors flew afterward, so either some of the council had loose lips or others had no hesitations about making up stories. 

Auguste hadn’t seemed bothered by the notion; he’d been grandly pleased leading up to the wedding anyway, and if he had had any thoughts about it he hadn’t shared them with Laurent. Laurent wouldn’t have wanted to hear them, anyway; he hadn’t understood his brother’s desire to marry Jehanne any more at fifteen than he had at eight. 

Jehanne was a charming woman, and a politically advantageous match with Kempt. She was kind to Laurent and she and Auguste were obviously besotted with each other. Auguste refused to say anything ill of her even though they’d been married three years and there had not yet been a child. Laurent had heard Herode bring it up with him once, and Auguste had said, “Some day,” with remarkable patience, and then, when Herode pushed, “I don’t wish to speak of it.”

There were more diplomatic tensions with Akielos than there were with Kempt, and Auguste might have considered the sister of the kyroi of the border territory there. That would have assuaged tensions in Delfeur and eliminated many of the border skirmishes in the foothills. But Jehanne and Auguste had been a love match.

Laurent had thought about the ceremony again when he had plotted his scheme for Damianos to marry him. He had considered all of the scheme, from which council members he had the most sway to involve, to which would be the most insistent on not hushing the matter up. He had planned out the timing, to ensure that Damianos must extend his visit, and he had anticipated that the council would insist on a wedding. He had known what the wedding would entail.

Laurent had also read the histories in his father’s library. Since the capital had been established in Vere, there had only been seventeen royal weddings. Three crown princesses, two crown princes, and a dozen siblings of the heirs. Yet there were twenty-nine entire volumes dedicated to the consummation ceremony. It was a favorite topic for both lascivious historians and for conversation in the pet’s quarters. 

There were stories where the couple could not agree on what sexual acts to perform, and all manner of strange bets to come to an agreement. There were stories of kings who became nervous and struggled to perform, and of clever princesses who roused them. There were stories of princesses who claimed to be virgins and were not, and princesses who used goat’s blood to stain the sheets, and one story of a widowed lady with four children who blithely announced to the council that she was in no manner a virgin but would be sure to give them a good show, and had proceeded to do so. 

But Laurent had not thought of the ceremony as though he were going to perform it. It was different to him now. 

He remembered the strange shiver that had gone through his body that morning as he had crawled beneath the sheets next to Damianos. He had felt strange as Damianos had reached for him sleepily and pulled him into an embrace. Pleased, partially, because Damianos was cooperating with his plan without even realizing it, but also some other feeling. He wasn’t certain how to put a word to it, and that bothered him. It wasn’t anything he had felt before. He was uncertain how to categorize it. 

He had felt apprehensive. What if the council did not appear? What if Damianos awoke and put him out of the bed before the council came? Laurent had thought that he might be able to distract Damianos for a short time. Laurent knew that Damianos found him attractive. It had been one of the first things that had drawn his attention to the visiting Akielon prince, the look in his eyes when he regarded Laurent. Yet the man had a damnable way of seeing through Laurent’s plans, and he might have refused to be distracted without answers, no matter how seductive Laurent tried to be. 

It was disarming to think about the ceremony including the same warm press of Damianos’s body against his own. He could imagine the ceremony if he pictured it as playing a role on the stage, but imagining the ceremony with the same dizziness in his stomach he’d felt that morning was disturbing. 

He began to think that perhaps he ought to have cultivated more experience in this arena. Taken a discrete lover. It would have had to have been someone older, but some of the pets who had already bought out their own contracts were open to casual dalliances. He could have found something that suited his needs. Then he could have practiced, trained his body in the same fashion he did in the sword fighting ring, and faced the marriage bed with a similar feeling of confidence. 

He had had that thought about wine, once. Drinking had not appealed to him, but drinking with other members of the court had such an obvious usefulness for gathering gossip and helping Auguste know who was saying what about whom that he had built up a tolerance. He’d drunk alone, first. Drunk in his rooms with bottles fetched secretly from the cellar, until he’d been able to swallow the stuff without making a face at the sour taste and manage most of a bottle before it affected his head. 

He had conquered that. He had worked calluses into his palms with the sword master; this could hardly be any different. He had very little time, he supposed. One week, he had told Damianos earlier, but that simply meant that he had to work harder. He was no stranger to hard work, so that was hardly a barrier.

Sex toys were a common enough courting gift, in Vere. Laurent had been a recipient of courtship offers almost as long as he could remember, so he had a collection, just as he did of jewelry. All of it—the toys and the jewelry—went unused, stored away in the same wardrobe full of small drawers. 

He unhooked the doors to the wardrobe and opened it. The top part of the wardrobe was a gilt-edged mirror, so he was faced by his own reflection. He spared little time looking at himself and began opening the drawers and selecting items that suited his needs. He ignored jewelry, closing drawers on ornate earrings and a sapphire necklace. Prince Torveld of Patras had given him that, Laurent remembered, saying that it had matched his eyes. 

Laurent selected toys instead. His hand hovered over a glass toy lying elegantly in one of the velvet lined drawers, but after a moment of hesitation and thinking about Damianos’s size, he picked a larger carved wooden toy. He hesitated a moment longer, then became irritated with himself for waiting, and closed the drawer with more emphasis than was required. 

He did not keep oil in the wardrobe or near the bed, but the servants stocked the toilette on his dressing table with dozens of items he did not regularly use, and he rummaged through the bottles, searching for something that would serve. A small unornamented phial suited his purposes, was unoffensive when he sniffed it, and he took it over to the bed with him. The toy and the stoppered phial of oil seemed illicit lying on his bed, somehow. He looked away while he undressed. 

He did not wish to send for a servant, so undressing himself took several moments, and he left his clothes in a folded stack on a chair. 

He felt more ridiculous lying on the bed next to the toy and the oil than he had dressed and looking at them on the bed. 

When Laurent had been younger, he had found it fascinating to lurk in the pets’ baths. His brother had thought his interest was prurient, but it hadn’t been. He’d found the pets’ talk interesting. They knew things about the court that others didn’t. Some of the men were kind to him, and admired his hair or the fine bones in his hands or the milkiness of his skin. 

He knew enough from the pets’ talk to use one of his fingers, first. He was making a mess of the oil. His finger felt strange. It was tolerable, certainly. Sticking a finger inside himself was easier than even five minutes of sword practice. He hadn’t really expected it to be difficult. But it gave him no insight into the popularity of the practice, either. 

Laurent added a second finger. He tried to push deeper, but the angle of reaching his arm behind himself was awkward. He scissored his fingers, instead, stretching. The feeling was—more, with two fingers. But nothing about it justified the fuss that the pets made about this sort of thing.

Laurent removed his fingers and reached for the toy. He had inserted the fingers lying on his back and reaching around, but it had been awkward. He contemplated for a moment, decided that the point was to accustom himself to how it would go during the consummation, and rolled to his stomach. He oiled the wooden toy that he had selected, and tried reaching with the toy in the new position.

It was like a blind man trying to spear a boar on a hunt. Aiming the angle of the toy was difficult. All Laurent was doing was smearing oil over his buttocks. He felt ridiculous. He adjusted his position, thinking of pet performances that he had seen, and brought his knees closer to his chest. He felt like he was presenting, in some ridiculous fashion, and he bit off half of a curse. 

Then he told himself to think of it differently—he had to think of this as the Akielon would think of it. Taking a degrading position for a few minutes was worth ensuring that the entire plan would work. The Akielon might be hesitant about the consummation. He’d seemed hesitant earlier that day in the garden. Laurent might need to seduce him. He knew how Damianos was affected by his appearance. Laurent needed to think of this like a weapon.

The angle remained awkward. He began to wonder why the wooden toy was not built with a more convenient handle. He let his cheek press against the pillow and reached around with a second hand to assist with positioning the toy correctly, feeling the tip of it resting at his entrance.

Laurent applied a gentle pressure, and nothing happened. His body refused to be breached. 

He was beginning to feel impatient. It was the feeling he had when he was training with the sword master Milon and a trick of the wrist that Milon made appear effortless would not come to him even after he had attempted it a dozen times. 

He was thinking of it wrong, again, he told himself. This was not an action which required finesse. The Akielon might not be gentle, after all, Laurent had tricked him into this marriage. Laurent needed to be prepared for it to be sudden. 

Laurent tilted the toy again so it angled through the fingers of his left hand toward his entrance, and then, with his right, he pushed more firmly. There was a moment more of resistance, and so Laurent exerted more pressure.

The toy breached him, and once through the ring of protection at his entrance, the pressure he was applying slid it in much more quickly. The slick wood slipped through his fingers and was inside him, suddenly. 

Laurent gave a short gasp of surprise at the feeling, which was more than he had expected. He hated himself for the small noise, which had been genuine but had sounded almost like a contrived pained whimper. He resolved that he must never again make that noise.

He took in what it felt like to have the toy inside his body. It felt large. Foreign. He did not feel at all like squirming the way pets did while being fucked; he felt as though he ought to hold perfectly still until the thing was removed. He had to exert pressure with his hand to keep it from slowly slipping out of his body. He felt with his left hand on the toy, and he realized that only half of it was inside him. Perhaps slightly less than half. It was some trick like magicians played with mirrors, that within him the toy could feel twice as large as he had guessed when he had looked at it, and yet only half of it was inside.

He permitted the toy to slide out of his body. He let it fall to the bed and it rolled and rested next to his leg, smearing more of his skin with oil. He pressed his face to the bedding and took three breaths. This was going to require more practice.

He coated the toy with oil again, and determined to try again.

He was more prepared, the second time. It was easier to push the toy through the initial resistance, as though his body’s defenses were now lower. He knew how it would go once past the initial push, and he took that more slowly, easing the toy inside with a firm, consistent pressure. He kept a finger marking how much depth he could get, and when he found more resistance, he gritted his teeth and pushed into it. 

He took another deep breath, pushed a bit harder, and gained slightly more ground.

Laurent blinked against the bedding, then pulled the toy out and looked at where his finger was resting to gauge his progress. He had still only managed to fit half of the thing inside. He wondered suddenly if his body was defective. 

He reassumed his awkward position and pushed the toy in a third time. He was able to quickly reach the same depth he had previously. He kept a hand on the toy to hold it in place and waited for a long moment. 

The Akielon was not going to mount him and just sit there, though. He was going to actually fuck Laurent, to poke and move and thrust until he finished. Laurent used his hand to slide the toy out a little bit and then push it back in. His face twisted. There was—something—when the toy hit the innermost part. It hurt, something like pressing on a bruise. Laurent moved the toy in and out several times, more swiftly, trying to get the feel for thrusting, making a point to control his features even as something inside of him gave, suddenly, and the toy pushed in a little bit deeper.

He gave up that evening still not able to fit the entire wooden toy within himself. The next day, he declined Auguste’s offer to go riding, and he could see from his brother’s face that his brother thought he was still pouting about Auguste’s lecture about the marriage, but Laurent was uncertain of how comfortable he would be in the saddle. 

***

Damen spent the remainder of the week in Arles with his attention divided between wedding preparations and observing his half-brother. Wedding preparations were more distracting than he liked. There were a dozen Veretian court officials who seemed dedicated to ensuring he understood every minute of the five hours of ceremonies, and another half-dozen tailors who undertook to make different clothes for him to wear for each hour of the event. 

He tried to speak again with Laurent, to perhaps reason with him again, and Laurent declined his invitations impersonally by sending word with a servant. Damen spoke to Auguste, instead, who met him with a frown but heard out his suggestion of a long engagement.

“I would have thought that was better,” said Auguste. “Laurent is too young to marry. But why did you invite him back to your rooms if you wished to wait?”

Damen had no explanation for that, and looked down at the tiled marble floor between them.

“The council is anxious for him to be wed,” said Auguste. 

Damen hesitated, selecting his words delicately. “What motivates the concern for Laurent’s virtue? Is this because of the Veretian concern about bastardy?”

Auguste shrugged. “It is tradition.”

Damen felt guilty in the face of Auguste’s disappointment that Damen had refused to listen to his advice to wait before pursuing Laurent more seriously, and left their meeting with another apology and no real solution to the impending marriage.

The following evening he retired alone to his chambers to think. Nikandros joined him later in the evening, and his childhood friend seemed to understand that he was not ready to talk. Nikandros sat with him and they stared together at the fireplace. Damen appreciated Nikandros. The man had consistently been at his side. Nikandros was the one he turned to when his head was overwhelmed with Veretian plots and there was no one he would prefer to have at his side if he were facing an enemy on the battlefield. He did not express his appreciation to Nikandros often enough, Damen thought.

“Old friend,” Damen said finally. “Do you think that I am making a mistake?”

Nikandros considered. Damen watched the way a spark from the flames fell on the hearth and went out. “It is not my place to say, exalted.”

“As a friend, I would like to hear your opinion,” said Damen.

Nikandros was silent for a moment. Damen knew that it was his friend’s habit to consider before he spoke, and waited.

“From a political perspective,” said Nikandros, “it is advantageous. It always would have been so, to ally with Vere. It solidifies our position in Delpha and guarantees an opening of the borders for trade. Given the council’s current demand for the marriage, it seems especially prudent to continue. We do not wish to give offense by rejection and risk the offense being used as a justification for hostilities.”

Damen nodded.

Nikandros continued. “From a personal perspective, I do not know the prince. So I am not able to judge based on my own acquaintance whether you and he seem well suited. My assessment can only be based on what I know of you.” He paused for a moment.

Damen nodded again. Nikandros knew him well; his opinion was valuable. 

“You seemed to have enjoyed pursuing him in the court games when we first arrived. I have seen him so I know that he is to your tastes. Your affections are straightforward, my friend, so I would have said that if you enjoyed showing off for him in sports and chasing him to the library at the start of our visit that you were probably well suited.”

Nikandros tapped his fingers together thoughtfully. “What gives me pause is that you now seem very uncertain. Indecision is not typical for you. If you have regrets, you are best positioned to know their cause.”

There was ornamental carving in the stone along the fireplace, and Damen realized suddenly that one of the carvings was of two sprites fucking. He moved his eyes to the logs in the fire instead.

“I don’t like the feeling that he tricked me.”

Nikandros nodded. Damen wondered if Nikandros had looked at the carvings along the fireplace.

Damen continued. “But I am not sure that I see another path.”

“Well,” said Nikandros, and then he produced a flask from his pouch and held it out to Damen to drink. “Congratulations on your impending nuptials.”

****

Laurent learned that he had seven days until the wedding, and he took advantage of all of them. He was tangentially aware of Prince Damianos spending the time being coached on Veretian customs and practicing pronunciation of the archaic but traditional marriage vows in the old tongue. Laurent himself consistently kept to his rooms, sent away his servants, and practiced.

On the third day, he managed to fit the entire wooden toy inside himself. The fourth day he practiced inserting it while kneeling in front of the mirror in his dressing room and controlling his expression, so that he did not embarrass himself in front of the council. 

By the morning of the wedding ceremony, Laurent was confident in his preparations. He had practiced his positions and how he lounged in the bed so that it could appear simultaneously seductive and artless. He had readied himself to let the Akielon fuck him so the consummation could be validated, and he had mastered faking his own climax while that was happening. He suspected that his acting would be sufficient to trick Damianos in bed with him, and certainly the council watching from behind the bed curtains. 

Laurent took a final look at his own appearance before he left his rooms for the wedding ceremony. He was pleased. His hair was pulled back and that made him look older. One of Jehanne’s servants had braided it delicately at his nape. His clothing was ornamented—the palace tailors insisted, for a royal wedding—but the ornamentation was subtle. Embroidery and rich brocade rather than the encrusted jewels they had inflicted on Auguste for his wedding. The fabrics were shimmering shades of blue and gold, and they suited his coloring and his eyes. 

Someone came into his chambers unannounced. Laurent did not bother to look over; it could be only one person.

Auguste came up behind him and regarded Laurent’s appearance. Laurent met his eyes in the mirror.

“You look splendid,” Auguste said. “I ought to commission a portrait, I suppose.”

Laurent turned away from the mirror to face his brother. Auguste’s forehead was creased with concern.

“Are you certain you wish to proceed with this, Laurent?”

Laurent nodded. 

“It is not too late,” said Auguste. “I could still speak with Herode—”

That was not the best strategy, Laurent noted to himself. An emotional appeal to Herode, the aging and tradition-obsessed councilor, was likely to have little effect. A better strategy to escape the wedding would have been to make up a breach of protocol on Damen’s part, and then to take that as an insult and defer the ceremony waiting on an apology. Damen could have easily been induced to refuse to apologize, as he seemed to have as little interest in the marriage as Auguste. Alternately, it would not have been too difficult to actually arrange a breach of protocol rather than simply inventing a tale of one. It would have to be something public, in front of some council members, but Laurent was already starting to have an idea.

He pushed it aside. This was not an area where he wished to give Auguste a better idea. “I am certain, brother.”

Auguste sighed. His face assumed the expression he had when he was steeling himself to undertake something he considered unpleasant. He no longer met Laurent’s eyes and stared at a point over Laurent’s right shoulder. “Jehanne said that I should speak to you about the consummation.”

Laurent looked back at Auguste evenly.

“She thinks that it will be easier—” Auguste interrupted himself. “Laurent, are you a virgin?”

“What is your point, brother?”

Auguste was resolutely refusing to make eye contact and Laurent could see that he was starting to blush under his tan. “I want to tell you that it will be easier for you if you can relax—”

Laurent could feel himself begin to blush also, and he was angry that he could not control his own reaction and that brought even more blood to his face. 

“He will have his harem in Akielos, so you will not have to, often, if you do not like it. But for the consummation—”

The idea of Damianos’s harem in Akielos was one that Laurent had been continually pushing from his mind. He did not wish to think of it now, either. He interrupted his brother.

“We do not need to speak of this.”

They had both inherited the same stubbornness. Auguste persisted. “You can ask him to go slowly,” said Auguste. “And if it is truly too much I am sure he would stop if you say something.”

“You are ridiculous,” Laurent said. He had not come this far to not see it through.

“You might want to stretch before the ceremony—” Auguste continued, and Laurent could stand this no longer.

“What would you know about it anyway?”

Auguste still wouldn’t meet his eyes, but he protested. “I have! You know that I wouldn’t—with a woman—until I was married.”

Laurent knew Auguste had been scrupulously careful not to do anything that might cause rumors at court, but that did not convince him his brother had taken the boy’s part in his sexual romps with his brothers-in-arms.

“So?” said Laurent.

“So I know it can be very pleasurable,” said Auguste. He ran a hand through his hair, which was a boyhood gesture that only emerged when he felt quite uncomfortable. “But it is better to go slowly, and to use a great deal of oil—”

“I do not want to hear about this from you,” said Laurent, horrified. 

“Who else is there to say it?” said Auguste. It would have been hard to say which of them seemed more embarrassed by the conversation.

“Why are you saying this now?” said Laurent. “I could have been fucking my way around the court the last several years.” Auguste certainly had had many partners by the time he had reached Laurent’s eighteen years.

“But you haven’t ever taken a lover before!”

“How would you know that?” Laurent knew that he was letting emotion get the better of him. It was a weakness. He should have stayed calm, let his brother embarrass himself and stammer out a sentence or two while Laurent raised a questioning eyebrow, and then Auguste would have fled out of his own discomfort. “I might have dozens of men every night.”

Auguste mumbled something, and Laurent could only make out a few of the words— _guard, report._ His face was bright red.

Laurent braced one hand on the back of his dressing chair. “You have spies in the Prince’s Guard? How dare you—”

“I only want you to be happy!” said Auguste, raising his voice again. 

“Get out!” said Laurent. 

“Laurent.” Auguste drew his name out as a plea.

“Get out,” said Laurent. “Get out! Or I will have my men drag you out!” He slammed his hand against the dressing table in emphasis. “Or are they really your men, and I am not entitled to any privacy even in my own chambers?”

He shouted at Auguste until his brother left, still red-faced. Laurent followed him to the door, where he then turned his glare on his guards, who were each staring straight ahead at the wall, attempting to pretend to be blind to the fight between the king and his brother and also deaf to the argument they had certainly just overheard. Laurent looked from one to the other. Jord dropped his eyes to the floor and Huet was sweating but kept his gaze firmly at the opposite wall.

“When I find out,” said Laurent, “which of you has been delivering reports on me to my brother—” he let his threat trail off, and then he turned around, slammed the door behind him in a childish fit of petulance, and leaned against the chair and let out a shuddering long breath. 

He caught sight of his expression in the mirror and was horrified. He looked terrible. His skin was red and his eyes were wet. Auguste was a horrible brother and if Laurent looked like this when he had to face the Akielon at the front of the hall Laurent was never going to speak to him again.

***

The wedding was held in the Veretian audience hall. The chamber was the same size as the hall in Ios where Damen watched his father receive supplicants. But aside from the dimensions, the two rooms had very little in common. The floor was the least decorated part of the hall and it was tiled with marble. Squares of white, black, and pink stone were arranged in a pattern and it reminded Damen of how his childhood sword fighting master had drawn steps in the sand of the practice arena for Damen to practice. If Damen placed his right foot on a pink tile and his left on a black, he could twist into Gorgon’s defense.

The walls of the hall were filled with arches and alcoves. Each of the alcoves contained a marble statue of one of the ancestors of the royal family, something like the procession to the Kingsmeet. The arches themselves were carved, and each seemed to tell its own story, with the king’s crest, or the prince’s, or some decorative emblem worked into the stone.

The room was lit by narrow windows of glass, and the light was elegantly spread throughout the room by the placement of mirrors fashioned into the ornamentation across from each window, so the indoor chamber had a feeling of light. Damen had seen the room when it was empty, and it was a marvel of design, and he had been fascinated with the arrangement of the mirrors and the windows even as he had found the room ostentatious. 

Now, the hall was full, and each of the courtiers in attendance at the wedding seemed to be in competition with his or her clothing to outdo the decor of the room itself. One of the ladies seemed to have designed her costume in imitation of a peacock, which was a bird Damen had only seen in the Veretian menagerie. The rich fabric of her dress shimmered between green and blue in the light, and she had a fan of blue feathers sticking up as a crest from the back of her hat. 

Damen himself had refused all of the offers of the Veretian tailors and insisted on wearing his own clothing. He had taken out the golden circlet he wore sometimes on occasions of state, and pinned his red cape with the golden lion that was the symbol of his house. 

He had also horrified the Veretian herald Hendric by insisting that his brother stand next to him in the wedding. Damen understood that Hendric was upset because Kastor was a bastard, and bastards were something to be hidden in Vere. A king with a bastard son in Vere might have been deposed, or would certainly have sent his son away to live in some remote province, not sat the boy at his own table in his hall and raised him alongside his true-born brother.

But Damen was not Veretian, and while he had been watching Kastor more closely after his conversations with Laurent and with Nikandros, Kastor had not yet been proven guilty of any crime, and so Damen insisted he be given the same honors that any brother of the groom would have been offered in a royal wedding.

When the ceremony began, Damen and Laurent were presented to each other in the front of the hall. Damen focused on the prince across from him rather than on all of the other people in attendance. 

Laurent’s clothing was Veretian in style, but not as ostentatious as Damen might have anticipated. The fabrics were fine, and the material had been skillfully cut and tailored to the prince’s figure. It revealed the breadth of his shoulders, drew the attention down his arms to the taper of his wrist to a fine-boned hand. He had a swordsman’s figure, Damen realized suddenly. He was not certain how he could have seen Laurent a dozen times—including one memorable time in Damen’s own bed without clothing—and not have realized it before.

Laurent was also wearing a golden circlet, though it was less noticeable because the yellow of the metal was the same shine as his hair. The prince stood tall but seemed relaxed. His posture presented a regal air. His eyes were clear and blue and met Damen’s easily. His expression was calm and difficult to read. 

Damen regarded him a moment longer and Laurent turned his eyes to the councilor who was officiating the ceremony. Damen kept his eyes on Laurent, and he thought he detected something uncomfortable in Laurent’s expression. He wished again that he could have spoken with Laurent honestly, could have talked with him without any guards or chaperones and without Laurent’s tricks, and understood why Laurent was doing this and if there was another way to achieve whatever it was that Laurent was attempting.

The councilor began the traditional invocation of the ceremony, and Damen turned toward him. It was too late for any of that.

***

Damianos frowned throughout most of the ceremony, which either meant that he was still unhappy about the marriage and impolitic enough to show it in front of the council and all of the court, or that he was struggling to remember the order of the ceremony and when he was expected to take Laurent’s hand or speak one of the vows. Laurent suspected that it was the latter, though he was sure that the court was already rife with rumors of the former. 

The ceremony was completed without any significant breaches of etiquette, and Laurent allowed himself to feel slightly relieved. Auguste had not seemed to have realized the potential of such a breach to have postponed the marriage, but it was still good to have the opportunity for any such plot to have come and gone without incident. That meant that all that was left was the reception—at which it would be hard to cause a breach of etiquette, the wedding reception was expected to be a drunken revelry—and the consummation.

The servants were attentive in filling Laurent’s goblet with the wedding wine uncorked for the feast, and when Auguste wasn’t looking Laurent took to emptying his goblet into his brother’s. 

Laurent had meant this as a method of keeping his wits about him. Damianos was seated on his other side, and Laurent specifically did not want Damianos to drink in excess, so his options were limited and the effect of his brother becoming inebriated was an accident. 

Laurent had not counted on his brother’s habit of becoming sentimental when drunk, though, and he was forced to endure Auguste ruffling his hair at the table, pulling him to the dance floor to spin him around in a distracted dance, and then giving an impassioned apology for their earlier fight. “Forgive me, Laurent,” said Auguste. “You are going away and I do not wish for there to be harsh words between us.”

“It’s forgotten,” Laurent assured him, and then Hendric was glaring at him so Laurent invited his new husband to dance with him instead. When Laurent stood next to the high table to offer his hand to Damianos in the dance, he could see that Damen’s goblet was still full. The Akielon was sober, but smiled politely and made a fair attempt at the steps of the dance.

When they were in the middle of the floor, Laurent offered a suggestion. “Pretend we are sword fighting.”

“Why? Because we are enemies?” 

Laurent shook his head. “Because it might help you get the feel for the dance. Just—pretend it is a fight.”

There was another moment of stiffness between them before Damen took his advice, and then the steps came more naturally. Laurent led him subtly. Their movements became more harmonious.

Damen concluded the dance with a short bow in front of Laurent as there was a smatter of applause for the musicians. “Thank you,” Damen said.

Laurent felt slightly discomfited, reminded of the strange way Damen had made Laurent’s heart patter when he had first arrived in Arles with strange Akielon courting traditions like pressing his lips to the back of Laurent’s hand. 

“I didn’t want you to step on my feet,” Laurent said dismissively.

Damen smiled, but Hendric was there to drag them off to the dessert course of the feast, and there was no further opportunity to talk.

The final course was candied pears in brandy served with cream. Laurent stirred his fruit in the delicate porcelain bowl and raised the silver spoon to his lips once and then pushed the dish away. Beside him, Damen declined a second helping, and Laurent slipped away from the table.

There were two private dressing rooms on either side of the consummation chamber, and Laurent ducked into one of them. He saw Auguste’s eyes on him as he closed the door, but he did not think his brother would deny him a final moment alone. When the door latched shut on the banquet the quiet of the dressing room seemed oppressive.

The dressing room was small and rarely used, but the servants had readied it for the occasion. There was space for Laurent and for one of his squires, if he had permitted one in, and shelves and hooks for Laurent’s wedding clothing. A silk robe hung on another hook, and there was more wine on a small set of shelves. The shelf under the wine goblet and pitcher contained a selection of phials of oil.

Laurent took a long, deep breath, and then began to prepare.

He unlaced his jacket and hung it on one of the hooks, and took off his shirt and folded it on one of the shelves. He unlaced his boots and pulled them off, and then he sat down on the single wooden chair and took the tie off the end of his braid and let down his hair. It probably would have been easier to keep it tied back and off of his face, but he knew that one of Damianos's weaknesses was his hair, and he thought he might want the fall of it over his eyes as a shield. 

After he was ready, he stared at the goblet of wine on the shelf for a long moment before there was a knock on the door.

***

The consummation ritual was foreign to Damen. There was nothing like it in Akielos. There was little reason to care if a marriage were consummated in Akielos—it was considered binding even if the participants never had sex. There were political marriages where the partners kept separate slaves or even separate households, and might have rarely come within several feet of one another for public events. That did not make their marriages less valid. 

It had been something of a fashion more recently in Akielos to marry for love. Damen’s own parents had been a love match, and that had started a trend among others of the Akielon nobility. But there was still no one interested in observing their wedding night.

Damen had been worried that it would be like one of the lectures at the university he had toured in Arles, with all of the council seated in rows with quills poised to take notes. 

It was not. With the exception of Hendric, who was overseeing the wedding ceremonies with a frown, it was more an extension of the general revelry at the wedding reception. Noise floated over from the party, where there was still music and dancing interspersed with laughter and applause. The council members selected to witness the occasion had brought their drinks and plates of dessert with them, and seemed more occupied with finding servants to refill their goblets than with Damen coming out of the dressing room and climbing between the bed curtains. Laurent had not yet emerged, and the curtains formed a darkened chamber around the bed. The bed curtains had Laurent’s emblem embroidered on them; Damen supposed they had been commissioned specifically for this occasion.

Laurent emerged from his dressing room and Damen suddenly had something better to look at than the bed curtains.

The prince’s dressing gown was also decorated with his emblem and had probably also been commissioned specifically for this occasion, but Damen had very little opportunity to admire it. When Laurent opened the bed curtains on the side opposite that which Damen had entered, he drew upon a single tie on his robe with two fingers, and then let the robe fall off of his shoulders and to the floor. Laurent held Damen’s gaze while he did it. The action had been purely utilitarian, without seductive flourish. Laurent met Damen’s gaze evenly, and did not glance up through his eyelashes. Yet the action had been unmistakably sexual, and Damen swallowed hard as Laurent climbed into the bed next to him.

Laurent raised an eyebrow at Damen’s robe, as though it were an obstacle in his path and he were waiting for a servant to dispense with it. Damen’s people did not have taboos against nudity; it was common to practice sports in the nude and Damen was not ashamed of his body. He was also, however, not quite ready to dispense with the dressing gown.

Laurent’s body was a crescent of pale skin as he reclined on top of the bed clothes. His skin was white and smooth and flawless; he might have been one of the statues in Nereus’s garden. He even had the unmoved expression of one carved in marble. He was not aroused.

Damen had seen Laurent naked before, in the rushed minutes in his own bedchamber between when Laurent had slipped into bed with him and Damen had come awake sleepily to the chaotic confusion of Herode and Jeurre arriving in his rooms. But he had not had an opportunity then to truly look at Laurent; he had been trying not to look at Laurent. There was no reason not to look now.

Laurent had freed his hair from its braided style from the wedding and only it defied the statue impression, as it held a wave from the earlier braid and looked mussed falling on Laurent’s shoulders. His hair looked as though he had already been lounging in bed for some time, tangled against the pillows, while the rest of him was pristine and defied the notion of touch.

Damen reached for him. He moved slightly across the bed and used one hand on Laurent’s wrist to urge him to move toward the center of the bed also. 

“Laurent,” said Damen, pitching his voice for the space between the two of them only. “Are you certain you wish to do this?”

Laurent gave an exasperated sigh, but his voice was also low and quiet enough that it would not be overheard. “Have you forgotten the part where I tricked you into this marriage? Of course I am certain—”

Damen let the words wash over him, and having ascertained that there was no objection within them, he leaned in and took Laurent’s mouth. 

The prince’s reputation had suggested he was a virgin, if only because speculation about his probable nature in bed was rife amongst the entire Veretian court, and there were no former lovers standing up to quell the rumors with tales of experience. Damen also had a sense about him, about the way he had behaved when Damen had courted him, about the way he moved when he’d crawled into Damen’s bed. If Laurent had taken lovers in the past, there had not been many, and his experience had been infrequent. If Damen had been the type of man to gamble on such a thing, he would have bet that Laurent had kept to himself. 

Damen understood how it might have been overwhelming to be a boy and a prince in the Veretian court. Even as a man he found the sexuality of the entertainments and the casual lewdness of the court overwhelming, to have been a boy with all eyes focused on him would have been all the more challenging. There would have been no private corners for experimentation when the entire court was anxiously awaiting news of whether the prince was as icy as he seemed.

Damen had some experience with virgins. He had been honored by the First Night of several in his harem, and knew the nervousness and excitement of the slaves presented for the first time to the prince they’d heard stories of for many months. Slaves were prepared for their first night with their master, and yet they were still inexperienced and sometimes hesitant, and Damen enjoyed coaxing them to relax and showing them the pleasure that their bodies could find together. He thought he could bring the same to Laurent, if the prince would let him.

Laurent’s manner climbing into the bed had been haughty and cold, his words taunting and mocking. But when Damen kissed him, his words fell away and his lips opened to Damen’s tongue. Damen opened his eyes, and he could see the prince blink, once. He had very long eyelashes. Damen closed his eyes and leaned in again. He had thought to taste the wine they had been served at dinner in the prince’s mouth, or perhaps the pears in brandy that had been presented as a dessert, but he found only Laurent, his lips shy and his eyes wide. 

Laurent seemed uncertain about what to do with his hands while their lips pressed together, and after a long moment he rested them hesitantly on Damen’s shoulders. Damen eased him back to the pillows at the top of the bed, so that Laurent could relax back into the feathers and Damen himself could prop himself on one elbow and kiss the prince more comfortably. 

Laurent was eyeing him as though he were a snake in the grass. “Get on with it,” said Laurent.

“Relax,” Damen suggested. Laurent met his eyes and his gaze was narrow. “Let me guide you,” said Damen. 

“Oh, is this like fighting also?” said Laurent, alluding to his earlier advice on the dance floor. Damen laughed, because the show of humor from Laurent boded well for their encounter that evening, and was not a bad sign for their entire marriage together, as well. 

“Nothing like it,” said Damen, with a grin. “But I think I have more experience in this arena than you do.”

Laurent seemed to be considering this. Damen let him think for a moment. They were lying next to each other on the bed, with perhaps a hand-span of distance between their faces. Laurent was on his back, his face turned on the pillow toward Damen. Damen was on his side with his head propped on one hand.

Laurent seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, and he relaxed slightly into the pillows. Damen smiled at him, and then leaned in again. He moved slowly, giving Laurent an opportunity to speak up, or object, and Laurent said nothing. Damen took his lips again, and tried to make Laurent’s second kiss one of intent. He pressed his lips to Laurent’s, and then he brushed his lips along Laurent’s cheek, nipped at his earlobe—Laurent hissed—and then went back to Laurent’s lips, parting them with his tongue before tugging at Laurent’s lower lip with his teeth. 

Laurent’s hands tightened slightly on his shoulders, fisting in the dressing gown, so Damen smiled against his lips and then moved down Laurent’s neck. He brushed his lips against the ivory column of the prince’s neck, and then along the fine blade of his right shoulder. 

Laurent raised his head to look at him, and Damen looked up for a moment to meet his eyes. 

“There is a plan,” said Laurent.

Damen raised an eyebrow, and ran one of his hands down Laurent’s side and felt Laurent shiver. 

“The council is watching,” said Laurent.

Damen was trying not to think of that. “Perhaps they’ll get bored and go back to the party,” he said. “Drink too much and fall asleep in their cups.”

Laurent craned his head up further. “They are not going to—they have to watch!”

Damen pressed a kiss to Laurent’s shoulder to smother a smile at the prince’s expense, and then slid down slightly further, brushing his lips along Laurent’s ribcage. “Watch what happen?” said Damen, testing Laurent to see if the inexperienced prince would get shy about the words.

It turned out that the prince was not at all shy with words.

When Laurent let out a stream of extremely explicit and precise instructions, it was Damen’s turn to look at him with surprise. It was hard to believe that such filth had come out of such a pristine vessel. And yet he still shivered when Damen caressed his flank.

Damen was sure the surprise on his face was evident, and Laurent looked smug at having generated that reaction.

“Come on,” said Laurent, returning to his more general encouragements. “I am not some blushing maiden.”

Laced up in his jackets and with his hair tied back, Laurent sometimes had an androgynous quality. Damen might have used the word beautiful to apply to him, even though it was an Akielon word traditionally reserved for women. He had high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, and sensual lips. When the curve of his neck was visible above one of his jackets, his skin was pale and delicate. Naked and lying half-beneath Damen in bed, Damen could see his body below the neck. His shoulders were broader than his hips. Damen let his eyes move downward, taking in Laurent’s nipples, the trail of hair on his lower stomach. His cock was still soft but well formed; Damen looked forward to touching it.

Damen refused to let Laurent rush him, and he returned to the exploration down Laurent’s chest that he was making with his lips. The prince sighed, and it moved his ribcage and his stomach beneath Damen’s face. Damen pressed the side of his cheek against the smooth skin of Laurent’s stomach. The skin was white; it had probably never seen the sun. He could feel even the tiniest bristle of his facial hair rub against Laurent’s pale skin, when he turned to look Laurent’s skin was slightly reddened at his touch. 

Damen lingered on the area of skin below the prince’s navel, resting his hands on Laurent’s hips. With some lovers his hands would have held his partner’s hips steady, or been a restraining force against over enthusiasm. Laurent held himself perfectly still, and Damen had to look for the smallest reactions to see the effect he was having on Laurent. When he trailed his tongue in a circle across the prince’s skin, the muscles of Laurent’s stomach contracted briefly. 

“We are already married,” Damen murmured to Laurent’s navel, not entirely certain if the prince could even hear him. “I will honor the treaty. We do not have to do this.”

Laurent did hear him. “You understand nothing.”

Damen’s face was right in front of Laurent’s cock, which was still quiescent. He thought he understood perhaps more than Laurent was crediting him. “We don’t have to fuck,” he said.

He meant the words kindly, honestly. The Akielons would follow his direction regarding the treaty regardless of the marriage; his kinsmen already considered the marriage valid earlier that afternoon when Damen had stated the vows. Nikandros had presented him with a gift in a quiet moment of the reception as an acknowledgement, and Damen had already sent a messenger to tell his father, Theomedes. Damen was uncertain why Veretians were so obsessed with sex in public that they extended it to their marriage rituals, but he had no such obsession. 

Laurent did not take the words kindly. He took hold of Damen’s head by way of clutching his fingers in Damen’s curls, and he drew Damen up the bed, not gently, so the two them were face to face. When his face could be seen by no one but Damen, hidden by the pillows and Damen’s body from the council, Laurent’s expression was vicious. “Of course we have to fuck,” Laurent hissed. 

Laurent seemed to have interpreted Damen’s offer as an insult. 

“I will not tolerate you interfering with my plan,” said Laurent. 

Damen gave up on words. “If you dislike what I am doing, you must say so,” and he lowered himself again to take Laurent in his mouth.

The prince reacted in surprise. He made a small noise and curled on the bed, arching around where Damen had applied his lips. His hands clutched again in Damen’s hair. Damen paused with just the head in between his lips, holding still and waiting for any words of objection or for Laurent to pull him away, and when Laurent did neither, he continued.

Damen tried to be sensitive to Laurent’s pleasure. He paid attention to the prince’s reactions. Laurent liked soft touches. His stomach quivered when Damen pulled his head away slightly and breathed on the wet skin; he trembled when Damen leaned in again. 

Laurent was starting to rouse in Damen’s mouth, hardening under the attention of Damen’s lips. Damen was pleased by this success, and continued. When Laurent reacted with a tremble of pleasure or a breath of air, Damen took note, and repeated whatever he had done, turning the prince slowly from a marble statute to a living man. Laurent’s thigh became pink with the rub of the edge of Damen’s stubble.

Laurent clutched Damen’s hair a bit too painfully. Damen raised one of his hands to Laurent’s, and loosened it from his curls. Laurent released the other hand from its grip but left it resting gently on Damen’s head. Damen held Laurent’s freed hand in his own and stroked the palm as he sucked. Laurent seemed to like that.

Laurent was approaching his pleasure, Damen could tell. One of the things he loved above all others was to bring a lover to release, to tease them to the edge of pleasure and then over it, and to see in their pleasure his skill as a lover and his enthusiasm and effort for the task. Laurent was nearing it. His breath was coming faster. His thighs tensed next to Damen’s head.

And yet, at the moment at which Damen expected Laurent to let go, Laurent froze. He held himself tightly under control; he did not tip over the edge.

Damen could feel the tension in the body under his; the tight way Laurent was holding himself. He slowed his administrations and raised his head in a question.

“This is not part of the plan,” said Laurent.

***

The Akielon refused to adhere to the plan. If Damianos had followed the plan they had worked out in advance, the whole consummation could have been finished by now, Laurent thought. Instead, they had made no progress. 

Laurent decided to help matters along. No amount of words could seem to get Damen on board with the plan, but perhaps he was better motivated by actions.

Laurent rolled onto his stomach. 

Damianos touched his ass. Laurent could feel the scrape of the beginnings of the man’s beard against the top of his thighs. Damianos moved his hands to Laurent’s hips, and they tugged Laurent backwards a few inches into a new position on the bed with Damen on top of him.

Laurent hissed, pleased. This was the direction he had anticipated; this was the plan that he had laid out. Damen would mount him, and soon they would be done. 

Except Damen was still wearing his dressing robe.

“Your clothing is inconvenient,” said Laurent, pushed back against Damen with a sinuous roll of his hips.

Damianos had the gall to be sarcastic. “It’s Veretian,” he muttered about the robe. “It has too many laces.”

“If you cannot figure it out,” said Laurent, gritting his teeth. “Then have one of the council call for a servant.”

But Damen seemed to figure out the robe behind him, shedding the fabric to the jumble of embroidered bedsheets on the other side of the bed, and leaning in to press against Laurent once again. 

It felt different, when it was skin against skin. The weight of Damen’s body over his seemed more significant when they were pressed together warmly; Laurent felt caged by Damen’s hands placed on either side of his own. Laurent could feel Damen’s arousal pressing against his backside, leaving a trail of wetness along his skin. Everything felt closer now. More. Laurent closed his eyes.

“Yes,” said Laurent. “Do it.”

Damianos continued to ignore the plan. He moved against Laurent again, a full body press with his lips dragging across the back of Laurent’s shoulder. His cock slipped between Laurent’s legs. Laurent froze for a moment, surprised, and it pressed against his balls as Damen moved against him with just a tease of the fuck he was supposed to be providing. 

Damen seemed to like the thrust against Laurent’s backside and between his legs; he moaned behind Laurent and moved in the same fashion a second time. 

“We could just do this,” said Damen. He kept making these offers in a genuine tone, as though he truly thought that would satisfy the council, or that Laurent would tolerate any degree of uncertainty about the validity of their marriage. Laurent was not going to spend his life trailed with rumors of illegitimacy. Damen was being ridiculous.

“We cannot just do this,” said Laurent, frustrated, and then it came to him suddenly, a flash of inspiration on how to manipulate the Akielon. The man was not moved by arguments, but Laurent had a moment of insight that the method to manipulate this man was via promises. He changed the tone of his voice, and moved under Damen’s body again, relaxing under Damen’s greater breadth. “I want you to fuck me,” he said, embracing the vulgarity that he had seen have an impact on Damen earlier. “I want you to put your dick inside me,” Laurent said. 

Damen moaned, and there was no reason to be incomplete about what he wanted. “I want you take me completely,” he continued. “So there is no doubt between us.” _So there is no doubt in the council,_ he thought, but bit those words off before he said them aloud. “I want you to finish inside my body,” he said, continuing.

This method of persuasion was already noticeably more effective with Damianos than argument. When Laurent turned his head to the side, he could see that Damen had closed his eyes and looked deeply tempted; he thrust against Laurent with greater abandon as they moved together on the bed. Laurent smiled to himself, pleased by the efficacy of his new strategy, and then Damen balanced himself on one hand and used the other hand to tip Laurent’s face to the side and lean down so they could kiss.

Laurent met his lips agreeably. He could feel that Damen fucking him was close; he had figured out how to get Damen to adhere to the plan. He had been using the wrong strategy, earlier, but he had corrected himself and he understood now. 

Laurent turned his head, tilting it down toward the pillow. His hair fell down in a cloud around his face. “Do it,” he said, pressing his hands against the mattress, bracing himself.

But Damen moved away from him, and Laurent almost sighed in frustration. Why was the man incapable of following a plan?

“Where is the oil?” said Damianos. He located it on the small table next to the bed, and sat back on his heels behind Laurent with the phial. 

Laurent supposed it was thoughtful of the man to think of these preparations. 

It was not really necessary, as Laurent had already seen to this before he had come out, but he decided to treat it as a useless kindness rather than yet another failure on Damen’s part to follow the plan.

Damen began with one finger. Laurent could feel it trace around the rim at the entrance to his body, and then press inside gently. He wondered suddenly if it would have felt the same if this had been different, if he had only snuck into Damianos’s rooms for pleasure rather than because of the plan, and then he bit off the thought as he could feel Damen twist his finger gently inside Laurent’s body.

“Is that all right?” said Damianos. His voice seemed deeper than it had earlier in the evening.

“Yes,” said Laurent impatiently. “Continue.”

Damen chuckled, but he took Laurent’s encouragement and added a second finger. 

It was different than when Laurent had prepared himself in his bedroom. He was more comfortable because both of his hands were free to brace himself against the bed, and he could get more leverage to push back against Damen’s hand as Damen pushed inside of him. Damen’s fingers were larger than Laurent’s fingers, and he could feel a stretch as Damen twisted them inside of him. It was different, too, when it was not his own hand, and when he did not know exactly how Damen was going to move. If it was his hand he knew to anticipate when he pressed in or when he scissored his fingers to stretch; when Damianos touched him all he could do was wait and anticipate.

Laurent began to feel that the amount of stretching Damianos was performing was perhaps beyond sufficient and verging on excessive. “Fuck me,” he directed.

“You are very tight,” said Damianos, and Laurent could almost hear the man frowning behind him. 

“I want to feel it,” said Laurent. “Put it in me.”

Damen clucked at him. “There is no rush,” he insisted, and then he inserted a third finger. 

That was—more. Laurent took a breath, relaxed into Damen’s hand deliberately, and was pleased that his voice was even when he spoke. “I am ready. Come on.”

Damen moved his hand. Laurent pressed a smile into the pillow beneath him, pleased that he had finally convinced Damen to go along with the plan. 

Damianos flipped him over on the bed.

Laurent blinked, rolled onto his back and looking up at Damen in surprise. Damen had moved over him as he’d positioned Laurent on the bed, and he was over Laurent now. Laurent shifted slightly, thinking of rolling back onto his stomach. 

Damen leaned in and took his mouth again. “Like this,” he said, kissing Laurent a second time. “I want to see your face.”

Laurent began to feel uncertain. 

When he had imagined this moment, he had always pictured being on his stomach, which had meant he could hide his face in the fall of his hair and the fabric of the pillow. To do this on his back, looking up at Damen, with Damen looking on his unprotected face while it happened--Laurent felt exposed. He thought of the council watching again, which he had temporarily forgotten. 

Damen did not seem to have observed Laurent’s surprise at the position. He was moving, shifting in between Laurent’s legs and pulling them to rest on either side of his hips. Damen leaned in to kiss Laurent again, and shifted Laurent’s legs further, encouraging Laurent to fold them around his lower back, pressing Laurent into the bed and bending him in half.

The advantage of kissing in this position, Laurent thought, was that at least it meant Damen could not be looking at his face, and it put Damen’s head in the way of any council view of his face as well. He opened his mouth eagerly to Damen’s lips.

Damen was using one of his hands to position his arousal at Laurent’s entrance; Laurent could feel it resting against him, and then a moment of pressure as Damen positioned the head and pressed within.

The head slipped inside with a sudden movement similar to some of the more bulbous toys Laurent had experimented with, and at the same time that it went in, Damen groaned, and rested more weight in a stretch on Laurent’s thighs, and Laurent made another noise. 

It was different to have Damianos within him than it had been practicing with the toys. All of Laurent’s strategies for relaxing to take the toys within himself seemed to have abandoned him; he felt no more capable of relaxing at this moment than he did of flying, or of disappearing from the bed. 

The feeling was again more than Laurent had anticipated. 

Damen seemed to sense the tension in his body; he had arrested his movement and was holding himself like a statue above Laurent. He made soothing noises in his throat, and Laurent wanted to grit his teeth in annoyance. Damianos was stroking his side like Laurent was a startled horse. He was ridiculous. The consummation could have been completed a dozen times already in the span they had spent in this bed, and at every corner Damianos seemed determined to draw it out. Laurent dug one of his heels into Damen’s back as a signal to start moving. 

“Shh,” said Damen. 

“Come on,” said Laurent. 

“It’s okay,” Damen assured him, as though he completely misunderstood all of Laurent’s objections. “I will stay shallow and not put all of it in.”

Laurent almost screamed in frustration. The man understood nothing. 

Laurent turned his frustrated rage into action, and startled Damen by rolling the two of them over, suddenly. Damen went along with his sudden motion, and they ended with Damen on his back next to where Laurent had been lying, and Laurent on top of him. Laurent expected that his flip was successful primarily because Damen had been in no way expecting it, but he took a small satisfaction in having moved Damianos anyway.

Laurent balanced himself on his knees. Once he was on top of Damianos, he was able to control the depth of penetration, and he lowered himself.

Damen made a surprised but satisfied noise as he grabbed for Laurent’s hips to slow him, but Laurent had already settled himself against Damen’s hips.

Laurent closed his eyes.

***

Laurent pushed back against Damen far too quickly, and Damen, surprised from their sudden reversal in positions, was too slow to stop him. Laurent wore a determined expression on his face, his brow creased. Yet there was something surprised in his eyes as he blinked with Damen completely within him, and his mouth was slightly open.

Damen had to kiss him. He drew on the muscles of his abdomen and used Laurent against his pelvis as a counter weight, and sat up in the bed, shifting underneath Laurent’s body. When he was sitting, he met Laurent’s lips, kissing his tiny expression of surprise and breathing against his face, feeling an indescribable urge to simply hold Laurent close to him. Laurent would hardly appreciate that impulse. 

Damen was finding it hard to puzzle out what Laurent wanted in bed; harder even than it had been to understand his motives in wanting this marriage in the first place. Laurent was an enigma.

Damen encouraged Laurent to shift position slightly, moving his legs to curl around Damen’s hips again and leaning into Damen’s embrace in his lap. The shift changed the depth of their penetration slightly, and Laurent made a noise into Damen’s mouth. They stopped kissing for a moment, but lingered just a hair's-breadth away, their faces almost touching. Damen blinked. This close, he could tell that Laurent’s eyes were watering.

Damen was worried for Laurent. He could tell that Laurent was not especially experienced, and it would have been better for him to take the penetration slowly, to ease into the full depth, or even to start with some other act where he could relax into having a new lover without pushing himself or experiencing any discomfort.

Damen held Laurent gently, not trying to move or to shift underneath him. He stroked Laurent’s side gently, and kissed him chastely. He kept his lips closed and teased at Laurent’s lips and then moved his caress along Laurent’s jawline. 

After a moment, Laurent opened his eyes. His eyes were very blue. Laurent blinked.

“Laurent,” Damen said, trying to put something of what he felt into words, and struggling to find words beyond Laurent’s name.

Laurent blinked again. “Was my direction that I wanted you to fuck me unclear?”

Helplessly, Damen laughed. “You are demanding,” he said.

“You are poor at taking direction,” said Laurent, and Laurent leaned in to Damen’s jawline. Instead of mouthing at it gently the way Damen had to him, Laurent bit him. “Get on with it.”

***

For a moment after he rolled on top of Damen and lowered himself on Damen’s cock, all Laurent could do was breathe and concentrate on controlling his expression. Damen’s cock felt larger inside of him than the toys he had practiced with had felt; Damen’s body surrounding him was immeasurably different than practicing alone in his chambers. It was harder to relax when Damen was next to him, and harder still when Damen kept touching him, moving his hand from a gentle rub on Laurent’s side to his shoulder or his hip or his thigh.

It was unclear to Laurent why men were so obsessed with this particular sexual act. It must be enormously pleasurable to the other partner, he supposed, though Damen’s hesitation to get on with things did not support that particular theory.

At least he had managed to get Damen to penetrate him, now, and that portion of the consummation could no longer be disputed. Now he just needed to persuade Damen to finish inside him, and the entire ceremony could be complete.

Damen was still not really cooperating with Laurent’s plan. He seemed more interested in kissing Laurent and caressing him than in fucking him. 

Laurent bit his jaw in encouragement, and Damen only moved one of his hands to Laurent’s cock, taking it in his grasp and stroking slowly, rubbing his thumb gently over the tip. Laurent frowned and bit his lip. It didn’t matter if Laurent himself reached orgasm in this ceremony. None of the council would care about that, and Laurent was confident he could fake it so that they would never be able to tell, anyway. 

He remembered what he had learned earlier in their encounter, and began to use his voice as an encouragement. “I want you to fuck me,” he told Damen. “I want to feel you inside of me—”

“I am already inside of you,” said Damen. “You can feel it.” Laurent was annoyed by this response, but he could hardly argue that it was inaccurate.

Laurent took a breath, and tried to tighten his legs around Damen’s waist to give himself some leverage to raise himself and lower himself slightly. He was not in a position where he had much ability to move, and the most he could manage was a gentle rocking motion. “I want to feel you move inside of me,” he elaborated.

Damen maintained his steady stroking of Laurent’s cock. His hand was warm, and it was soft from the oil he’d been applying to Laurent earlier. “I want to see you finish,” Damen countered. “I want to see your face in pleasure, finding enjoyment in my body.”

“You first,” said Laurent, rocking forward in Damen’s embrace and back slightly again. Damen chuckled at this response, and when he laughed it shook Laurent slightly in his lap and the angle of Damen inside of Laurent shifted. Laurent’s eyes widened. That was—new.

It was too much to hope that Damen had not observed his reaction. Damen clearly saw how Laurent had been surprised, and he correctly divined the cause of Laurent’s reaction, taking hold of Laurent’s hips and guiding him to rock again in the same fashion. Laurent felt the sensation again, the pleasurable pressure and lightening across his nerves. Damen rubbed his thumb over the head of Laurent’s cock again and at the same time managed to tilt Laurent to brush over that spot again and Laurent shivered. Perhaps he did understand why men made such a fuss about this after all.

“I want—” said Laurent, leaning backwards and trying to explain. He bit off the rest of his sentence and closed his eyes so he did not say what he was truly thinking, which was that he wanted Damianos to stop making him feel things and get on with it. “I—”

Damianos seemed to take his inarticulateness as a sign of arousal, and correctly interpreted his movements as wanting to change positions, and he rolled them to the side and then shifted, and they ended with Laurent on his back pressed against the bed again. 

Damen shifted one of Laurent’s legs and raised it up to rest on his own shoulder. “It is good you are so flexible—” said Damen, and Laurent bit his lip around a smart reply. The change in position had changed how Damen’s cock felt inside of him, and the movement had caused Damen to slip almost out of him, and then as Damen had settled Laurent’s leg into place with one hand, he thrust back into Laurent again, and that was even _more_ than it had been when he had been on top of Damen and only able to rock gently, and Laurent heard his throat make a noise even as he swore he was going to stop making that noise.

He closed his eyes, instead, because it was too much to feel Damen and to see him at the same time. It seemed that all he could feel was Damen. The taste of Damen’s kiss lingered on his lips; Damen’s scent surrounded him in the bed. He could hear the rustle of the bedclothes as Damen moved and the groan that escaped Damen’s chest as Damen bottomed out inside of him.

Laurent didn’t know what to do with his hands. One of them was lying limp in the bedding and the other was clutching at Damen’s shoulder. He reached both of them up toward Damen, dragging the man’s head down and into another kiss. Damen managed to keep a steady rhythm fucking in and out of him even as their lips met again. Laurent twined his hands together behind Damen’s head and arched on the bed, whimpering as Damen thrust in hard.

He had a sudden vision of how they must look together to the council, curled into each other on the bed, moving in tandem to an invisible rhythm of pleasure. Damen’s darker skin would contrast against his own pale skin. Laurent’s hair would shine against the navy sheets like the golden coronet he’d worn for the earlier portion of the ceremony. It would be like one of the pet’s entertainments, where dance turned to fucking and the fucking was still part of the dance. 

Damen got hold of Laurent’s cock again, and twisted his hand around in a gentle embrace. Laurent arched up against Damen again, feeling Damen’s cock reach somehow impossibly even deeper inside of him. He pressed his lips against Damen’s shoulder, and then he was taken by surprise again as pleasure burned through his nerves and his body, and he bit Damen’s shoulder as his cock jerked and spurted in Damen’s hand. 

The bite to his shoulder seemed to surprise Damen into finishing as well, which he did with a deep-voiced cry and a deep thrust into Laurent. He held himself still for a moment, braced over Laurent and thrusting gently as he finished. Laurent blinked his eyes open and caught sight of Damen with his own eyes closed in open-mouthed pleasure. He looked ridiculous, Laurent thought.

***

The aftermath of the consummation ceremony was more embarrassing than the ceremony itself, Damen decided.

During the consummation, it had been easy enough to ignore the council behind the bedcurtains and to focus his attention on Laurent himself, right next to Damen. Laurent was, after all, somewhat distracting. 

After the consummation, there was no ignoring the world outside of the bedcurtains. Damen was not accustomed to dealing with business so rapidly after he had finished with sex. It was more to his tastes to hold his partner and rest, perhaps nap, perhaps draw his lover closer for a second round.

In Vere, there was none of that. Laurent pulled away from Damen before Damen was ready to let him go, and he opened the sheer bedcurtains and padded barefoot a few steps across the floor to reclaim his dressing robe. Once his pale skin was hidden behind the robe he had something of an untouchable aura again, even though the skin of his neck was pink from Damen’s touch and his hair was a mess from rubbing against the pillows. Once his body was covered it was hard to believe that he had just a moment ago been naked. Once he was across the room from Damen, it was hard to believe that just a moment ago they had been touching. 

The council crowded in to offer their congratulations. Laurent’s brother Auguste came over, seemed happily drunk, and clapped Damen on the shoulder, seemingly having forgotten all of his earlier disappointment about the circumstances of the marriage. 

Damen pulled on his own robe, shrugging it over his shoulders, and he watched out of the corner of his eye as Laurent ducked back into his dressing room.

That was the last that he saw of Laurent for several days. 

A servant guided him to their new shared chambers to sleep, and Damen poured himself a goblet of wine in the bedroom and relaxed to drink it alone. The rooms were even more opulent than the ones he had been given as a guest. On the east side of the chamber there was a balcony overlooking one of the gardens. Damen could hear the echoes of the wedding reception spilling outside from the banquet hall as he drained the goblet. 

Eventually, Damen draped his robe over a chair and crawled into a fancy Veretian bed for the second time that evening. This time, Laurent did not join him. 

Laurent was not present the next morning at breakfast. Damen ate quietly, suppressing a smile at Auguste’s obvious hangover. After the meal, Damen learned from Laurent’s guard that Laurent had gone riding, and Damen lurked in the stables for an hour before Nikandros found him and drew his attention to the arrangements for their departure back to Ios.

When he managed to sneak away and return to the stables, Laurent’s horse was there again—a beautiful grey mare—but she was being tended to by a groom and the prince was nowhere to be seen. 

The evening’s entertainment was the theater, a troupe from the city having come to the palace to perform in front of two sets of royalty. The stage was well lit but the torches in the audience area were put out, and so it was hard for Damen to make out if Laurent had snuck into attendance or remained absent. The performance was a comedy. It was more explicit than an Akielon comedy would have been, though all of the parts were played by men to suit the Veretian stigma against bastardy. Auguste whispered to Damen that he prefered when the performances were put on by an entirely female cast; Damen admitted that that would be something to see.

Damen managed to find the new chambers he had been assigned on his own, only becoming slightly lost in the east wing before he located his guards at the door. But Laurent was still not present, and Damen slept alone. 

The following day his attention was fully occupied by arrangements for their departure. Dozens of decisions had to be made about what would travel in the wagon train and what would go by ship, and there were a handful of Veretian courtiers who came to give him well wishes for the journey and put in a good word for trade from their region when he returned to Akielos.

He asked Auguste at dinner after Laurent, and whether the prince was well since Damen had not seen him. Auguste frowned, and said, “I thought he was with you.” 

“He seems to be avoiding me,” Damen ventured. “I am not sure if I have displeased him?”

Auguste set his fork down and raised his wine goblet to his mouth. “I am sure it is a misunderstanding, nothing more,” said Auguste.

“I worried he might not wish to leave Arles?” said Damen. “I do not wish to part him from his homeland and his family unwillingly; he could remain here.”

Auguste’s brow was still furrowed. It was not unusual for arranged marriages to work out elaborate visitation schedules for the parties to split their time between one person’s home or another’s holdings. The arrangements might mean that the parties spent a portion of the year apart, usually with an understanding that they were free to discretely take other partners during their separation. 

Damen’s own rushed betrothal to Laurent had involved a similar negotiation between representatives from each royal family, though Damen’s understanding of the settlement was that Laurent would spend all of his time in Akielos, as Damen was the heir to the Akielon throne and could not be expected to travel excessively once he assumed the responsibilities of the kingdom. Damen would not have insisted on strict adherence to the settlement, however, particularly if it made Laurent unhappy. He would have let Laurent travel or visit Arles as he wished. 

But it was unusual for newlyweds to separate just after they were married, and Auguste’s expression showed that he knew it. 

Auguste escaped from the meal after the fourth course, presumably to go find his errant brother and speak to him.

Damen let him; Auguste would have an easier time finding Laurent than he would, and Auguste might have a better chance teasing information out of his younger brother than Damen would. Laurent remained an enigma to him. 

***

Laurent was hiding in the gardens in his favorite spot. There was a broken fountain close to the east wing gate, and there was a small wooden pavilion that was intended to overlook the fountain, but almost no one ever went there because the fountain was broken. A single fish swam around the pool instead of the water spouting from the angel sculpture in the center of the pool. 

Laurent sometimes liked to go to the pavilion to hide with a book when he was escaping a particularly pedantic tutor or, more recently, hiding from the attentions of a particularly zealous suitor. 

Laurent saw his brother approaching across the garden, and ducked down before Auguste could see the golden glint of his hair peeking over the edge of the railing.

But he could hear Auguste’s footsteps approaching across the grass nonetheless, and then after a moment he heard the click of Auguste’s boots on the white painted wooden steps.

Laurent looked up. He could see Auguste spotting Laurent in the pavilion. Laurent was sedately dressed in grey riding clothes, his hair was practically tied back. He did not have a stack of books next to him as he might have when he had been younger, nor did he have a cache of wine bottles, though Auguste had arrived with the neck of one bottle in his hand. 

Auguste sat down next to Laurent in the pavilion and handed him the bottle. Laurent accepted it, took a delicate sip to evaluate the vintage, and handed it back to his brother. 

They sat in silence. Laurent heard a frog croak out next to the pool.

“Did you dislike it?” said Auguste. 

He did not need to specify what he meant. There was no question of what they were discussing. 

Dislike was not exactly the word that Laurent would have used. He did not exactly have words to describe what he was thinking, which was part of why he had retreated by himself to organize his thoughts, but the problem was not that he had disliked it. In fact, the problem might have been that he perhaps liked it too much. However, Laurent very much disliked where that left him, and so he said, “Yes.”

Auguste drank from the bottle again. “He seemed attentive to you?” said Auguste.

Laurent had a sudden thought of what might have happened if Damianos had not been attentive. Would Auguste have interrupted the consummation ceremony to object to the treatment of his younger brother? He might have, Laurent thought, amused, especially given how much Auguste had been drinking that night.

Auguste continued. “It was only the first time. The act often improves with familiarity.” 

Laurent was not going to be enticed into another argument by asking his brother how he knew that, or what he meant. Instead, Laurent took the wine bottle from his brother’s grasp and drank from it again. He was deliberately not thinking about a _second_ time. 

Auguste did not seem to consider Laurent’s participation in this conversation necessary. “It is no matter,” said Auguste. “He will return to Akielos and find pleasure with his slaves, and you can stay here with me.”

Laurent sat up suddenly. “I am going with him to Akielos.”

Auguste straightened next to him. “Do you want to?”

“Yes.” That had been the entire reason behind his scheme.

“He does not think so,” said Auguste. 

“He is foolish,” said Laurent. “Of course I am going with him.”

“Why would he think so?” said Auguste. “You avoided him before the wedding; you have avoided him after. It is kind of him to offer to let you stay with your family.”

Laurent frowned again and raised the bottle to his lips.

Auguste continued. “It is no matter. I suppose if you persuade him to take you to Akielos, you can request private quarters and he can still find pleasure with his slaves. Though if you are going to do that, why would you not just remain here, brother?”

“I am going to Akielos,” said Laurent, and he stood up. He offered Auguste a hand up and they walked together back into the palace. Laurent then left his brother after a short hug, and went to speak with his men. He needed to make sure that all of his things were packed. 

***  
Damen found Laurent the next morning where he least expected him, in the barracks speaking with Nikandros about the travel arrangements and the best way for the prince’s things to be loaded in with the luggage.

Damen waited until Laurent had finished speaking, and then he nodded at Nikandros. “Would you excuse us?”

Nikandros left. 

They were alone in a crowd; there were Akielons everywhere loading things into wagons and yet no one was paying any attention to the two of them. 

Laurent was dressed for riding; he was wearing less ornamentation than Damen was accustomed to seeing on Laurent.

“You are coming with us?” said Damen.

Laurent nodded coolly.

“If you would prefer to stay in Arles—”

“I would not prefer it,” said Laurent.

“Or if you need more time to pack or to say farewell to your family—”

“I will be ready to leave with you tomorrow,” said Laurent.

Damen regarded him thoughtfully. The prince met his gaze. “Walk with me in the gardens,” said Damen, and the two of them fell into step as they left the bustle of the barracks for the quiet of the lawns. 

When they were in a secluded corner, Damen sat on a bench and drew on Laurent’s hand to tug him down next to him. Laurent perched on the edge of the bench, rested his free hand on the stone, and looked back at Damen. His expression was inscrutable.

“When we were last in the garden,” Damen said, “you promised to explain to me why you wished for us to marry.”

Laurent pursed his lips and tipped his head to look at his lap. “I did,” he said, sounding reluctant.

Damen gestured with his free hand. “Go on.”

Laurent glanced up at Damen through his eyelashes. His expression was considering, as though he were weighing how much he could say. 

“I have reason to believe that there are forces in the Akielon court that wish to usurp your throne.”

“You are speaking of my brother,” said Damen. 

Laurent eyed Damen for a moment, perhaps remembering Damen’s reaction the last time they had discussed this. Laurent nodded, finally.

“I know that you think this,” said Damen, not mentioning Nikandros’s similar concerns, or the mounting pile of evidence that Nikandros seemed to be assembling against Kastor. “But if you expect a coup in the Akielon court, why do you wish to join it? Would it not make more sense to keep your distance and stay in Arles?”

Laurent’s eyes widened. “I wish for peace,” he said, simply. “I believe you wish for it also.”

Damen rubbed his chin with his hand. “And you think Kastor in power leads to war between Akielos and Vere?”

Laurent nodded, slowly. “Civil war in Akielos first, most likely. And then skirmishes on the border, and if my uncle continues to foment unrest in Kempt, civil war in Vere also.”

Damen would not have thought of it that way, but he could see it now. He imagined a map of the two countries laid out in a war-planning tent with small figures of horses and men, and unrest in Akielos certainly would lead to conflict along the border. If Laurent was correct about his uncle’s ambitions—and given what Damen was grudgingly being forced to admit about Kastor, Laurent most likely was—then Damen could see the strategy of that as well.

Damen nodded, finally, accepting what Laurent had said. “And you think that you can prevent this?”

Laurent nodded. “I have some experience with deception,” he said mildly. 

Damen laughed, a short sound that acknowledged Laurent’s wit without true mirth. There was little that was humorous about their topic of conversation. “I prefer that you not exercise it on me,” Damen requested.

Laurent glanced over at him through his eyelashes again, this time the look was coy. “I will consider your request.”

Damen laughed once again. He ran a hand through his hair. “I wish circumstances had been different,” he said. “I wish we could have talked about this, that you had not felt that this trickery was your only option.”

Laurent’s eyes met his. 

Damen felt the corner of his mouth turn up. “I wish I could have continued courting you properly,” he said wistfully. “I enjoyed our time together, before. I would like to have thought that our marriage was for affection and not to prevent bloodshed.”

Laurent’s eyes flicked away. Damen shifted his weight and began to stand up. Laurent made a strangled noise, and Damen looked back over at him, sitting again. “I am not—” said Laurent. “Without affection.”

Damen smiled. He reached across the stone bench for one of Laurent’s hands, and took it in his own, and raised it to his lips. He pressed his mouth against the back of Laurent’s knuckles, and then he turned Laurent’s hand over and pressed his lips against the palm. “Good,” he said.

***  
Epilogue: One Year Later

They stood on the deck of the ship as they moved away from the coast. Laurent watched the white cliffs of Ios grow smaller in the distance as they traveled northward. Laurent looked down at the water, which was deep and blue, and then he raised his eyes again and looked to the side, at his husband standing next to him.

Damen was not looking out at the horizon. Damen was looking at him. 

“Is it tradition in Vere that the council watch the birth of the new prince or princess?” said Damen.

Laurent frowned. “Of course not. What a ridiculous invasion of the queen’s privacy.”

Damen muttered something unflattering to Veretian traditions under his breath. 

Laurent ignored it. He was pleased. It was a lovely day. His plan for unveiling Kastor’s treachery to Theomedes had gone perfectly and had been completed in time for the two of them to travel together and hopefully arrive just before Auguste’s child. Laurent had thought he might have to go alone and leave Damen to watch Kastor with only Nikandros at his back, but this was better.

“You know,” said Damen. “In Akielos, it’s tradition that we don’t consider a marriage consummated until both partners have fucked each other.”

Laurent eyed him. Damen’s expression was serious, but his eyes twinkled, and Laurent had read up enough on Akielon traditions in his year in Ios to be more than half certain that Damen was making this up.

“Actually,” Damen continued. “It’s expected they do it multiple times, each.”

Laurent was now almost entirely certain that Damen was making this up.

“In the same week—”

Damen did not see Laurent’s sudden rush at him coming. There was a splash and Damen shouted as they fell, and the air and the sun were warm but the water was cold. Laurent broke the surface to find Damen sputtering next to him. 

Nikandros was looking over the side of the ship with a resigned expression. “Man overboard!” he said. “Someone fetch a rope!” Nikandros called to the Akielon men on the boat. “And a net!”

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog on tumblr!](http://josselinkohl.tumblr.com/post/155229414257/heres-my-last-fic-of-2016-aka-the-second), [check out all of the author's Captive Prince fanfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=kudos_count&work_search%5Bfandom_ids%5D%5B%5D=3516977&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&fandom_id=3516977&user_id=Josselin)


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